What's It Like?
by Flyer
Summary: Tracy's POV if Nick had made her a vampire. I had some formatting issues; so if you would review and tell me if it was hard to read, I would appreciate it.,


Disclaimer: The world hasn't ended therefore I own nothing.  
Author: Flyer  
Title: What's It Like?  
Summary: Tracy's POV about being a vampire.  
AN: This is a little similar to stream of consciousness. I have never written a FK fanfic. Hope it goes well and please review for me. Thanx. This hasn't been beta'd so all mistakes happen to be my own :D

What's It Like?

I think that I'm in a brooding mood for tonight. It only comes upon me when I have nothing better to do. Lacroix may complain, but the world still has secrets for me to find. Things seem so strange now. Maybe it's the air. Let's go with that for a moment. The air feels different. Alive in a way that I could never understand before now. Maybe it's the scents that come my way. Smells seem more vibrant, willful as if they have a life of their own. Smelly life. Haha...I slay myself. It's hard to remember the beginning without bias, hard to discard it. But I'm here now. Sitting on top of a billboard and just watching. It's not the watchfulness of a hunter. It's merely the philosophical gaze of someone who has seen only a small part of the puzzle and can never dream of grasping the fullness of it. It's a contemplative gaze. How did I get here? I trace it to when I was created. Not born, created. It's all so clear now. Of course it was not always this clear. It was as muddy as the waters of the Louisiana bayou. I had seen the movie, _Interview with a Vampire_, and had this insane hankering to go to the bayou. It was very irrational of me and I can't tell you what made me feel this compulsion. Since I no longer had the specter of time looming over me heralding the arrival of old age and missed chances, I went. 

What was it like being brought across? How can I explain such a sensation? The fact is that I can't adequately express what it is to be brought across. Despite this appalling lack of creativity, I'll try. I remember dying, feeling the life bleed from me. My Maker was none other than the enigmatic Nick Knight. I felt and saw many things in the blood exchange. I saw Natalie trying to dissuade him from bringing me across; I saw his capitulation. And then I saw him return. I saw him give me this gift and I saw him regret it. But then Natalie died, and he was the one that killed her. Irony is a bitch, and often she and the other bitch, Fate, work together to royally screw us all. A part of him died when Natalie died. If not for Lacroix, his death would have been physically manifested instead of emotionally. 

But that's just the mechanics. You want to know how it was, how it felt. It's looking at another vampire and simply smiling a small contented smile and knowing that they understood completely. It's a feeling that I really hadn't felt before, except of course on girl night. I have no complaints against Nick. The year that followed the event, however, I had plenty of complaints against him. This quickly changed when I realized that I had an eternity before me. An eternity that I could spend hating and being alone, or an eternity spent with someone who understood me and could be close to me like no other ever could. The last fifty years have been fun. We became lovers, which is what generally happens between Maker and Created. We had no falsehoods between us. I could never take the place of Natalie and he could never replace Vachon. The bonds we share are far removed from love and lust. But maybe I should use an analogy to describe being brought across. Have you ever just gone outside and played in the snow, and returned to the comfort of your warm house where a nice warm cup of cocoa made by loving hands waits? It's that feeling of danger and cold, then a feeling of safety and love. It's knowing intimately the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. It's being on the cusp of life and death. It's being in a dark place and then bursting forth into a brilliant light that scares and intimidates, and then being embraced in the warm cocoon of loving arms. It's feeling a crushing loneliness and then a presence that never lets you go. But ultimately, it's the feeling of abject vulnerability followed by an awesome power. 

Enough of that though, because I could probably wax poetic on the subject all night long. I bore myself so often that it couldn't possibly be healthy. What is that I see? Ah...some wayward mortal on their merry little way. I have often thought it ironic that in our great race to defeat death in the end we welcome its embrace and find immortality. The harsh reality and truth of it is that I didn't defeat Death. I've only held it at bay. That's really all anyone can realistically do. Sooner or later someone or something will come along and end me, and Death will have claimed me, as it should have all those years ago. 

What is it like being a vampire? I attribute this question to morbid curiosity on the parts of some and a complete terror of death on many others. I've found an answer of sorts. Have you ever gone back to your old elementary school? You look around and everything seems so small. I look around that school and think. Were the toilets always that small? Was I ever unable to reach the water fountain? Was there ever a time when the teachers were like giants? Did the halls ever seem able to swallow me whole? And maybe you say out loud: "I don't remember everything being so tiny." And maybe a perceptive loved one or good friend answers you back, or maybe some small voice in the back of your mind amusingly replies: "Silly girl it isn't that the school is so small, it's that you're so big." That was my moment. The moment that I realized that change makes philosophers of us all. Any day now I'll begin to spout horrible poetry of my own devising. I shudder to think what scenario could possibly reduce me to creating horrible poetry. Weird things happen everyday so I won't be too surprised. Shocked, yes. I look back on my mortal life and ask myself many questions. Was I ever that eager? Could I have possibly been that naive? Was I ever that small? I look back on my mortal life and it seems so insignificant. Lacroix's words finally make sense to me, but I'll never say that to him. His endless rants on the inadequacy of mortals take on a new light. Another realization comes to me. That school in all its incredible smallness and insignificance is the foundation on which I was formed. Without that basis, what am I? I'm nothing. Without my mortal existence, I'm nothing. It was the crucible in which I was forged. Let Lacroix top that. 

Of course these musings are followed by the first time the bloodlust took control and I took a life. At my core I am a police officer. Sworn to uphold the law. It's not what I do. It's what I am. Lacroix will always be a Roman general. Time won't change that. Nick will forever be the Crusader with high hopes and a faith that failed him. The bloodlust was like no other sensation. When all was done, it finally clicked for me. All my life I wanted to understand why a human being would kill another. It's all about control. I knew this intellectually, but it was only an academic understanding. I just didn't get *it*. The control over another human and the raw power it gives is like a good vintage. I could now understand Nick and his pain. 

Nick taught me how to control myself. He taught me how not to let the blood lust take over. In this, he was the best of teachers and I his rapt pupil. I wasn't afraid of the beast in me. I didn't fear it because I had never felt its power or its ferocity. Deny the beast long enough and it'll break free. It was inevitable that it would over take me. The beast within possesses unequalled brute strength. Despite its impressive strength, however, the danger doesn't dwell in its strength. The danger lives in its cunning mind, in its persuasiveness, in its unfailing patience and deviousness. It tells you what you want to hear. It makes you believe it. When it spoke to me I became a believer. The hunt becomes more enjoyable and you pulse with a renewed vigor. On the hunt it's you and your prey. At the end of the hunt it's you and a corpse, occasionally. Usually the weak and ill trained are the ones who leave a trail of corpses. But during the feeding itself, it is you and the blood and the memories. Part of me was repulsed, but the majority of me felt the raw exhilaration. That part of me rolled in the waves of ecstasy of the blood lust. All things paled in comparison. It was in some ways better than orgasmic. I realized that Nick wasn't simply grieving times when the beast within seized power over him and he killed; he grieved the aspect of him that enjoyed it. He grieved the aspect of him that craved, desired, and even looked forward to the next time that his control would slip. 

My carefully crafted illusion of control over myself was shattered. I was slightly bitter because I had spent a lifetime creating that image of control. Through the ensuing purple haze, this life made a little more sense. Control is something we try to find everyday we exist. It can drive a person to madness in its alluring security. We all react in radically different ways. Some people kill others so that their illusion of control remains intact. Some people accumulate more wealth than they could possibly spend in a lifetime. And still others try their hardest to defy death, which manifests as obsessive work outs or dieting. Lacroix dominates. He dominates my life, Nick's life, the lives of other vampires. Vachon always ran away. Screed buried himself in his sewers and refused to look reality in the face. Natalie found causes to believe in and pursue. Nick turned his back on forgiveness. So how did I react? I accepted that my existence was small. I accepted what I became. And contemplate the sun during the darkest hours of night. 


End file.
